


from the day after

by noyabeans (snowdrops)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Bromance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Future Fic, Gen, Gen Work, It's more of an exploration of their relationship, Light Angst, M/M, Mentions of Graduation, Nekoma, No Romance, Photography, Relationship Study, Slice of Life, Yaku's Tough Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 04:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8564632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowdrops/pseuds/noyabeans
Summary: When Kuroo gets too swept away by his thoughts, Morisuke is always there to bring him back.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For everyone who's at a major juncture in their lives - be it moving on to a different stage of education, or phase of life, remember that moving on doesn't necessarily mean leaving behind.

“Does question 6 use th-” Morisuke’s words trail off abruptly when he looks up at Kuroo, who is seated right opposite him at the low table they’re studying at; Kuroo isn’t the one who meets his gaze - it’s the lens of Kuroo’s camera, which Morisuke is no stranger to, but is unused to having directed at himself. He amends his question: “What are you doing?”

“Taking a photo of you,” Kuroo says, his voice slightly muffled as he speaks against the body of the camera. There’s a click of the shutter before Morisuke even thinks to react.

Morisuke makes a disapproving sound in the back of his throat. “At least give me some advance warning so that I can pose?”

Kuroo’s pulled the camera away from his face now, and is currently reviewing the photo on the small digital screen. He presses a few buttons before finally making eye contact with Morisuke, and much to the latter’s disapproval, actually _smirks._

“Posed photographs are boring. I prefer capturing,” a wave of his right arm and wide grin, “candid moments.”

Morisuke looks at him askance. “Aren’t you going to explain why you were taking a photo of me? You’ve never done that before.”

Kuroo is a self-declared photographer. He spends his free time roaming campus and the city, and on occasion neighbouring suburbs, taking photographs of people, of buildings, of animals and landscapes. Morisuke’s gone with him on more than one photography excursion now, though he doesn’t particularly enjoy photography the way Kuroo seems to.

It’s just that going out on photography excursions with Kuroo is enlightening in a way - Kuroo always notices the little things that make up the quirks and idiosyncrasies of a place. A cat scratching itself on the top bar of a swing. A child waving out of a car window. The curious bird that’s perched itself on the lowest branch of the oak tree.

Kuroo’s eyes crinkle. “It’s exactly because I’ve never done it, that I should do it.”

Morisuke squints at him in suspicion. He's known Kuroo long enough that he knows Kuroo always has a reason, and he has a feeling Kuroo isn't telling him everything. He pins Kuroo with as hard a gaze as he can muster, and as expected Kuroo grows uncomfortable after a few minutes.  
  
"What are you thinking about?" Morisuke can feel the beginnings of a frown form between his eyebrows, and when Kuroo opens his mouth to reply, another thought crosses Morisuke's mind. "I know there's something, so don't bother hiding."  
  
Maybe any other casual observer wouldn't see much difference, but the difference between this Kuroo and the one he usually sees is palpable. This Kuroo is little more human, a little bit more vulnerable.  
  
He doesn't expect Kuroo's next words when they come, though.  
  
"We're running out of time," Kuroo says, tearing his gaze away from Morisuke. Morisuke can't help himself - he throws Kuroo a look that says, _The Hell You Talking About?_  
  
"We're graduating soon," Kuroo corrects himself, and Morisuke can tell from the way his finger rests, tremulous, on the shutter of his camera, that Kuroo is musing. "We’re not going to get to do this,” - waving at the table between them and the papers strewn across it - “for much longer."  
  
Morisuke’s frown deepens. Even though he’s talking in circles, Kuroo is acting as though the world is ending, and Morisuke wonders what’s brought this thought up.

Yes, the future is rapidly descending upon them, the previously undefined mass of possibilities gradually taking a tangible shape as the days pass, wrapped up in assignments and revision and examinations as they are. But they’re only in the first semester of junior year - there’s still a full year and a half before graduation. It’s hardly an appropriate time for Kuroo to be worrying about being separated when they finish university, since they’re currently smack right in the middle of revision week for the final exams.

“That’s not for another year and a half, you goon,” Morisuke mutters, no heat in his voice. “Let me see the photo.”

Kuroo doesn’t say anything else, just hands him the whole camera before picking up his pen and continuing on his work. Morisuke presses the Playback button - the first photograph is, expectedly, of himself.

He doesn’t look too bad in it, if he must say so himself. His face is in focus, looking slightly confused, and the background behind is blurry - Kuroo must have intentionally tweaked the aperture to reduce the depth of field - but the shapes and colours of the posters that Morisuke’s put up around the room are still recognizable.

He presses the right selection button to the next picture, which is also the first photo on the memory card. It’s a photo of Kuroo’s cats, with Kuroo and Kenma in the background. It’s entirely candid and doesn’t have any of the flair that Morisuke’s come to recognise as Kuroo’s photography style.

Out of curiousity, Morisuke presses the image detail button - the image label reads DCIM001; it was taken slightly over two years ago, early on in their second year at university.  

He scrolls on through the photographs, but doesn’t see anything he can put a finger to. The next thing he recognizes is from the Nekoma Christmas reunion dinner-sleepover two years ago. It’s a series of photographs, starting with one of Kai and Inuoka’s backs, the background of Kinshicho’s subway station easily identifiable anywhere, an image of Kenma eating sushi, and a number of burst shots taken in quick succession of Lev and Taketora fighting in freeze-frame. Morisuke remembers trying to break them apart. At the memory, Morisuke looks up with a comment on his lips that dies when he sees that Kuroo’s staring at him.

Well, let him stare. “You took photographs instead of helping me stop their argument,” he blurts out accusatorily. Kuroo blinks at him, before his lips curl into a slow smile.

“So I did,” he offers, not seeming apologetic in the least. Morisuke doesn’t expect him to be.

He turns his attention back down to the monitor screen. The next photograph is of Fukunaga holding the Christmas present he’d received for their Secret Santa, then it’s followed by similar photographs of the rest of the team - Morisuke and Kuroo’s photos come last. Morisuke had taken Kuroo’s photograph, but it isn’t that different from any of the rest before. Kuroo had still been using the automatic focus back then, and all Morisuke had really needed to do was to press the shutter.

He scrolls to the next one, which is a shot of the whole team - Shibayama had needed to leave early, so they’d taken a photograph together before he left. The next few photos are of different people sprawled over each other and the futons they’d laid out in Lev’s house where they were staying the night, and then there’s the last photograph they took together the next morning before they parted ways.

It’s… Morisuke fumbles for the word -

_Nostalgic._

He continues scrolling through the gallery and sees snapshots that he recalls happening in varying degrees of clarity interspersed with images of events he’s never seen before: the anime convention Kuroo had dragged him to, some unknown park that Kuroo had probably visited on one of his first photo excursions, the Studio Ghibli exhibition that he’d asked Kuroo to go with him to. A photograph from a time he doesn’t remember of Kuroo and Oikawa standing next to each other, a meet-up with some of the ex-members of Karasuno.

Their surprise party for Bokuto’s twentieth birthday, and - Morisuke raises an eyebrow - the sunrise along the riverside at Nakameguro. Ah, Morisuke remembers this photograph very clearly.

It was the first time Kuroo invited him along for a photo excursion. The other had reasoned, in that special brand of Kuroo reasoning, that “Neighbours keep each other company”. Of course, it was on all accounts flawed logic, but it was winter break of their sophomore year, and Morisuke had to admit that he was curious about how it was like to go around Tokyo doing nothing but take photographs.

Nakameguro was forty minutes away from Kinshicho even by subway, but they’d headed there because there was a river that ran through the whole suburb. According to Kuroo, it was the perfect place to capture the sunrise at.

Morisuke remembers them sitting along the banks of that river all through the night, waiting for the dawn to come, talking. At the time, the weather had yet to turn cold, and was still of a comfortable coolness.

Now that he’s looking at the photographs Kuroo took that day, the conversation that they’d had resurfaces clearly in Morisuke’s head.

“Man, Nekoma me would never have expected to be sitting on a riverbank with Yaku Morisuke of all people in the middle of the night.”

Morisuke had rolled his eyes. “What is this, a heart-to-heart talk?”

“That actually sounds like a pretty good idea, don’t you think? Water lapping just a few metres from our feet, nothing but darkness around us and the stars above us. Sounds pretty romantic if you ask me.”

The laugh that Morisuke had been trying to keep under control bubbled up in his throat and culminated in a decidedly ungraceful snort at Kuroo’s melodrama. “Yeah, sure, whatever you say.”

He’d long learned that some arguments with Kuroo were just not worth pursuing, and Kuroo _was_ right, the atmosphere surrounding them right now - quaint and quiet - was just too good for him to spoil by launching into unnecessary bickering.

Then, of course, because sentimentality had never been Morisuke’s strong suit, he’d broken the silence with the first thing he could think of: “So, we’re gonna be sitting here looking out at pitch black until the sun rises? Wake me up when it rises, will you?”

“You’re no fun, Yakkun,” Kuroo had chided.

“You’re not making it fun for me,” he’d retorted then, feeling mischievous and egged on by the teasing note in Kuroo’s voice. “What kind of host are you that you don’t even entertain your guest who’s travelled halfway across Tokyo just for you?”

Kuroo hummed in acquiescence. “Fair point. Say, what are you planning to do after graduation?”

Morisuke’s mind had drawn a blank at the unexpected question. They were barely midway through their degree, and graduation was a far-off concern, secondary in importance at the time to what modules Morisuke was planning to take in the next semester.

“Human resources, probably? I might be specializing in HR after all. But I don’t know whether that’s what I really want to do, I haven’t exactly thought about it.

“...Have you?”

“...Yeah. Sports medicine.”

Morisuke had already expected this answer considering Kuroo’s minor - he’d always been much better at sports science than his major, chemical engineering - but Kuroo’s next words were a surprise in themselves.

“I’m thinking of becoming a sports therapist, though. You know, like Hanazawa-san? I want to help young athletes get the help they need before it’s too late.”

_Oh._

Up until that day, Kuroo had never quite explained why he quit the volleyball club after freshman year, but Morisuke had always suspected that it had to do with Kenma’s knee collapsing after his college scholarship audition. While Kenma had never expressedly said he would continue playing volleyball after high school, Morisuke had known that he enjoyed the sport much more than he claimed to - enough that he’d considered trying to land a volleyball scholarship into Kyoto University. But the knee injury was permanent, and Kenma would never be able to play college-level volleyball with it.

“This is about Kenma, right?” Morisuke huddled closer into himself - this conversation was unchartered territory for both of them; Morisuke might be always ready and willing to engage in petty arguments with Kuroo and vice versa, but this topic at the very least, was one that he knew better than to joke about without Kuroo’s own permission.

Kuroo had never explicitly said anything, which was a big hint in and of itself, but between Kenma’s relationship to Kuroo and Kuroo’s tendency to blame himself for things that happened to the younger, it wasn’t difficult for Morisuke to draw the link.

A long pause followed his question, which had Morisuke wondering if Kuroo would simply choose to evade the question.

Then, a hesitant “Yes”.

Morisuke had stayed silent, holding his breath as if fearful that breathing alone would break whatever tension was currently hovering in the air, heavy and solemn.

“You know, I always thought I would be on the school team when I entered university. I mean, volleyball’s been such a huge part of my life that it only made sense that I would continue it after high school.”

He deliberated for a moment before speaking again, apparently having come to a conclusion. “You don’t know how Kenma got injured, do you?”

Morisuke shook his head. “I only heard that his knee collapsed right after his audition for Kyodai.”

“We both should have known better, honestly,” Kuroo said. His tone was light, but Morisuke had known better than to buy it. He was reprimanding himself. “It first happened when he was tossing to me in our third year, when I was training for college entrance auditions. He felt a pain in his knee and we stopped training for the night.

“At first we thought it was because he’d been training extra hard during that period - it was fresh after our loss at Inter-High and you know how we’d all promised to go to nationals and meet Karasuno. I know he didn’t look it, but Kenma wanted to meet chibi-chan there too. He was training a lot more than he usually did to get ready for Spring High, so I thought it might be that he was over-straining his knee.

“I mean, which volleyball player isn’t used to pain? The problem is, Kenma, being Kenma, refused to wear a knee guard. I probably should have made him wear it anyway,” and there it was, that same, self-deprecating tone that Morisuke, even back then in sophomore year, had already learnt to hate.

“I think it got worse after that - but he didn’t want to see the therapist. Clinics give Kenma anxiety, so I was hardly in a place to force him to go to one. I bought him a knee guard, and made him wear that instead.

“I guess it helped slow down whatever destruction he was wreaking on his knee, and he got so used to feeling the pain he just ignored it. Honestly, that’s how we made it to nationals. If he’d given in to the pain then Nekoma would definitely not have reached as far as we did.

“But when we graduated and it was his turn to start training for his own college entrance auditions, he was vice-captain already. He was training a lot more than should have been wise and after the audition he -

“I… I should have brought him to the therapist once he started feeling pain, but I -” Kuroo’s voice wavered a bit, and he took a shaky breath. “I was so goddamn _selfish_ \- I was scared that if he got a bad diagnosis, we would have to take him - _our setter_ \- off the team, and that would have spelled the end of Nekoma’s nationals dream.”

Kuroo’s hands had balled into fists by now. “God, if only I -”

Morisuke remembers shuffling himself closer to Kuroo, albeit awkwardly. Hearing Kuroo beat himself up over something like this felt awful.

“Look,” he had said, voice sharp. He could feel the furrow between his eyebrows. “I’m sure Kenma wouldn’t have wanted you to bring him to the therapist either, for the exact same reason that you didn’t want to.

“If anything, it’s the fault of us as a team for not realizing that he was injured in the first place. Even _I_ didn’t noticed that Kenma was injured, and he never told any of us. Stop playing the martyr, will you? Taking everything on yourself like that, what do you think you are, saviour of the world?”

Morisuke still remembers the unfamiliar sensation of anger, bitterness and helplessness swelling together in his chest at the time, but he remembers most of all Kuroo staring at him, eyes wide and maybe a bit glassy. He really didn’t like that look on Kuroo, Morisuke recalls - even when they lost to Karasuno in the Spring High finals, Kuroo had not sounded nor looked half as upset as he did at that moment.

“C’mon, Kuroo,” he said a beat later, softening. “You know Kenma wouldn’t want you to beat yourself up over this.”

Silence had stretched a great chasm across the small gap separating them, wide and hollow, before Kuroo spoke again.

“Yeah. That’s why I’m going to be a therapist so that I can stop the same from happening to others in the future.” _So noble of you,_ Morisuke had thought drily, but Kuroo had continued speaking while he was deep in thought. “Did you know? That injury was what got me into photography in the first place.”

“Huh,” Morisuke had said intelligently.

“I knew I couldn’t play volleyball without Kenma. That’s why I quit the team. It wasn’t because of whatever academic commitments or whatever else I said…

“Of course, it was a good thing in the end that I didn’t come here on a volleyball scholarship, but that’s also exactly what sucks - I got Kenma to train with me, but I still didn’t get it, and it feels like all of his exertion and injury was for nothing -” Kuroo cut himself off with a violent shake of his head.

“Anyway, it taught me to… appreciate everything more. I mean, it was only after Kenma’s injury that I really understood how fleeting moments are and that I wanted to preserve those moments, which is why I took up photog - Are you laughing at me, Yakkun?!”

Shoulders shaking slightly in his mirth, Morisuke had wiped a tear away from his eye. “That’s more of the Kuroo I know,” he’d said after regaining his composure. “Full of sentimental ideas and not wasting his breath feeling sorry for himself.”

He’d looked at Kuroo, and said with the ghost of a smile dancing at the corners of his mouth: “Capture your moments seriously, then.”

Kuroo had responded with a hard jab in the ribs, but he was laughing as well. “Did I ever tell you you’re an asshole?”

Tense atmosphere dissipated, Morisuke had only grinned. “I’m your favourite asshole.”

“Shut up,” Kuroo had grunted, but barely a second later, had said - “Thanks, Yaku.”

Yaku only made a sound in the back of his throat as acknowledgement, but he’d felt the prickling of heat at the back of his neck.

That was how they’d spent the night, until the sun rose up at long last for Kuroo to take photographs to his heart’s content.

Morisuke looks down at the photographs - one of which is of himself, face illuminated by the glare of the sun - and remembers sitting on the damp riverbank near the cusp of winter, two boys with a camera and a sky of stars above them, exchanging thoughts about the future, and he thinks: _Woah, it’s almost been a year_.

“Kuroo,” he calls, turning the camera monitor towards the taller boy. Kuroo looks at him, his eyes glancing once at the image - the reflection of the rising sun like the gods had spilled liquid gold over the horizon, across the river and onto the grass on which they had been sitting on. “Remember this?”

Kuroo’s lips curve into a crooked grin. “How could I ever forget?”

“It’s been a year. So much’s changed since then, huh?”

Kuroo’s smile falls just slightly at the comment, an unnoticeable shift to the untrained eye. But Morisuke has spent five years with Kuroo’s constant presence in his life and he sees the change as clear as day.

 _Ah_ , his mind supplies, as if finally understanding Kuroo’s musings earlier. _So this is what it’s about. No wonder he’s being unnecessarily sentimental about something like this. He’s_ scared _of the future._

“Hey,” he says, pushing aside his papers on the table and leaning his elbows on the tabletop, never mind that question 6 has been sitting incomplete for the better part of the past ten minutes. He’ll ask Kuroo about it later.

Kuroo, across the table, in this moment, looks more like an adorably confused lanky teenager than the young adult he actually is. He’s worrying at his lips.

“The world’s not ending anytime soon.” The moment the words leave his mouth, Morisuke slaps his forehead with his palm. _God_ , Kuroo and his poetic bullshit are rubbing off on him.

“I mean, sure, I get that time’s passing quickly and there’s not much time left, and there’s so much… uncertainty out there. But,” Morisuke considers his next words. “There’s also a lot of time, you dumbass. One and a half years is a pretty long time. You need to treasure the present too, you know?”

He cringes slightly at what he’s saying - Morisuke’s never been one for long speeches and emotional contemplation, but he presses on anyway.

He shifts his gaze towards the camera that he’s holding in his hands, at the photograph that still stares at him through the monitor screen, a sunrise frozen in time.

“Like, yeah, there’s only going to be so many more times that we get to do this. Study together, grab dinner in the canteen, share the grocery bill, whatever. But even after we graduate - we’re,” he bites his lip, and turns away to look at a spot on the wall in embarrassment at what he’s about to say. “We’re still going to share moments and make new memories together anyway, right?”

Kuroo doesn’t move for a long time that in reality is just a few seconds, but when he does, it’s to reach out for the camera. Morisuke keeps his face turned away, even when he hears the shutter click.

“Then I’m going to capture the one and only time that I’ll ever get to hear Yaku Morisuke say something so emotional to me,” Kuroo says, and Morisuke can hear the grin in his voice. He huffs a little, but doesn’t deny it.

Kuroo moves just then, and sits down right next to Morisuke. “C’mon, look’ere Yakkun, let’s take a selfie.”

Morisuke rolls his eyes but obliges, looks up at the lens and smiles.

“I thought you prefer candid photographs?” he questions after Kuroo’s put the camera down and moved back to his own side of the table.

“Sometimes there’s no better way to commemorate a moment than to smile for the camera, you know. When you’re genuinely happy, even the most planned photograph will look natural.”

Morisuke snickers. Nonetheless, there’s a smile on his face and a warmth in his chest, not that Kuroo needs to actually know that. Kuroo presses the shutter again.

It’s later on, when he’s looking at the selfie that Kuroo took that he thinks to himself: _we’re definitely going to do this again in the future._

And it’s in that moment that he knows - they’ll be okay. They’ve got their whole lives in front of them to make memories and capture moments together, however disgustingly Kuroo-sappy that sounds.

Something in his gut just tells him so. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Be the Light by ONE OK ROCK.
> 
> I really love reading Kuroyaku graduation genfic so I thought I'd write another one. This didn't turn out the way I wanted it to but my muse took hold, so I ran with it with the help of Elly and J.
> 
> This story speaks to me on a very personal level because I've been feeling like Kuroo recently - nervous about the future and what it holds, and fearful that I'll end up growing apart from people whom I've grown to care about as we go down different roads. Writing this kind of reminded me that walking down separate pathways doesn't mean living separate lives. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Constructive criticism would be appreciated.
> 
> Scream with me about Kuroyaku here:  
> [tumblr](https://rielity.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/noyabeans)


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